158 BRITISH BIRDS. 



This year, 1907, on April 15th, I found another colony of 

 Ao'dea alba in Montenegro. On the 25th April this colony 

 consisted of about twenty nests containing eggs. They were in 

 some cases almost touching one another, in small groups of two 

 or three, while others were scattered round in fairly close 

 proximity, and with them were several nests of Ardea purpurea. 



Amongst the colony above-mentioned iii Albania, were half- 

 a-dozen nests of the Common Heron, Ardea cinerea, all of which 

 held nearly fully-fledged young birds. All these nests were 

 built like those of the Purple Heron in the reeds in a large 

 reed bed at heights of from five feet above the water to close 

 above the surface. Thei*e can be little doubt, I should think, as 

 Mr. Ticehurst remarks {svpjra, page 101) that this is the 

 " ancestral habit which has been abandoned . . . in this country 

 in consequence of human influence, but which yet survives else- 

 where, in places where drainage has not robbed the birds of 

 their original homes." K. B. Lodge. 



THE PACIFIC EIDER (Soniatena v-nigrum). 

 Owing to absence from home, I have only just seen the August 

 number of British Bikds containing Mr. F. Smalley's most 

 interesting article on the supposed occurrence of the Pacific 

 Eider in British waters (supra, p. 69). He desires further in- 

 formation about the V-marked specimen of 8. moUissinia which 

 I received last year. 



The bird was shot near Graemsay, by George Suthei-land, on 

 February 2 1st, 1906, and was sent to me in the flesh. It was a 

 tine adult, with very white plumage. Under the chin was a 

 distinct V-shaped black mark, smaller and less conspicuous than 

 that figured in British Birds on the throat of 8. v-nigr^im, 

 but more distinct than that shown on the 8. molUssima (supra, 

 p. 71). The beak and feet were of the usual olive-green of 8. 

 molUssima. I sent the bird to Mr. Howard Saunders, Avho 

 pronounced it to be merely a vai-iety of the Common Eider, and 

 it eventually found a resting place in the York Museum. 



W. J. Clarke. 



REDSHANK BREEDING IN WARWICKSHIRE. 



On the 11th, 17th, 18th, and 19th July, 1907, I disturbed a 

 Redshank from some low-lying swampy gi'ound situate within 

 ten miles of Coventry, and used in connection with the sewerage 

 works of the district. The tenant of the land in question 

 informed me that two birds of the same sort had been seen about 

 the place for some time, but that lately only one of them had been 

 in evidence. Each time I put up the bird it circled round me 

 uttering its well-known note, but coming down to the ground 

 for a few minutes at intervals. 



